


Smash My Heart

by dontrollthedice



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Smash Commentators, Celebrity Crush, Fluff, Humor, M/M, kind of, kinda cracky tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25041019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontrollthedice/pseuds/dontrollthedice
Summary: Two years working as a commentator in the Super Smash Bros community had been a wild ride from start to present day. But George liked to think he was finally able to map the train route his life was taking.Then some Smash streamer waltzed into his life and scrambled the railroad tracks like a dick, and now George was left wondering how his life had gotten to this point.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), GeorgeNotFound & SapNap
Comments: 89
Kudos: 644





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this in 2 days in an extended fever dream, thanks to the people in the (specific server idk if im allowed to bring up) for listening to my screaming!  
> lots of jargon in this. you dont need it to understand whats happening, but its good to know:  
> labbing: individual practice  
> jabbing: basic ground attack, usually quick, weak, and short-ranged  
> juggling: keeping an opponent in the air for an extended amount of time  
> smash attack: powerful ground attack that can be charged for more damage  
> blast zone: specific boundary where if reached, the character gets KOd  
> recovery: effort to return to stage once knocked off it  
> stock: lives. matches usually start off with 3  
> three-stock: beating an opponent while keeping all three stocks

It wasn’t often that George wanted to strangle Sapnap on live camera, but—

“You totally want to strangle me right now, don’t you?”

George sent Sapnap a pointed look that conveyed everything it needed to.

The two were seated in a tiny,  _ tiny _ room with two microphones shoved in their faces (which George didn’t think was too great for audio quality or the safety of their audience's ears, but whatever). A television screen in front of them displayed the game being played at the actual tournament stage. The chairs they were given were rigid and plastic, but to be fair, George was grateful they were given chairs in the first place. They had been commentating for four hours, and the aches in his body were starting to confirm that. He wasn't quite in the mood for Sapnap being a little shit.

Moving across the Atlantic Ocean to work for the Super Smash Bros community with his long-time friend had been the best decision he had made in his life. But sometimes, he questioned that. 

And by sometimes, he meant often. 

And by often, he meant every time Sapnap opened his mouth to speak.

“Anyway, it’s a Fox mirror match,” Sapnap said. “They’re both Fox mains. It could go either way.”

George hummed as he watched the opening seconds of the match. “I don’t know, Sapnap. I wouldn’t place my bets on the guy who opened with gunning their opponent to death.”

“I mean, it wouldn’t be to  _ death. _ See? He’s jabbing.”

“That’s not the point I was—What the hell? Did you see that combo?”

Sapnap laughed and straightened his back. “F for the guy who was just spiked to death at thirty percent.”

“That’s rough.”

“Yeah, that—oh my god, did you see that up-smash after all that juggling? Call these guys clowns because they’re professional jugglers—”

“Let’s fucking go!"

"Pog as hell!"

They cheered into their mics when one Fox was spiked into the blast zone. George’s cheers dissolved into laughter, and he held his hand over his beating heart.

And that was what made everything worth it: the building hype exploding into a series of cheers and screams. Seeing the community tinker with characters' movesets to make the unthinkable possible would never get boring.

Sapnap laughed along with him, then kicked George’s ankle. “Pay attention to the match, scooter boy.”

George rolled his eyes, mumbled out some iteration of Sapnap’s name he knew would tick him off, and allowed Sapnap to lead into the commentary before following up with his own.

* * *

The match ended in the blink of an eye, and the tournament wrapped up soon after, leaving Sapnap to order pizza at ten o’clock at night while George sat on the couch of their living room, scrolling through their recommended feed on Twitch.

That had been their routine after tournaments since the beginning: abandon the post-tournament celebration, go home with takeout, and snark at each other while watching someone stream. If they hadn't exhausted their vocal cords, they would practice their commentary. But given how scratchy his throat felt, George didn't think either of them had the voice to talk over the stream.

When Sapnap walked in from the kitchen, George glanced up from the screen and said, “If you put peppers on my side, I’m moving back to London.”

“As if the airport staff would think someone as tiny as you is an adult,” Sapnap retorted as he took his seat next to George on the couch. He set down two cups of apple juice. “Have you found someone to watch yet?”

“I’m literally one inch shorter than you, but no, I haven’t found anyone yet.” George squinted as he scrolled past someone he recognized as a Lucina main, someone else mixing music, another Lucina main, two siblings battling each other—

“Can you pick someone already? Jesus Christ, George.”

“What? I want to make sure it’s worth our time.”

“Okay, but how much time are we wasting just sitting here? This is the last time I let you pick.”

George rolled his eyes, knowing that was a lie and neither of them were particularly good at quick decision-making.

It was a wonder they could work together well enough to be roommates, maintain their presence on social media, and be co-commentators (enough of a wonder they received constant questions about it. To all of them, George would say he didn’t know either). Updates on their YouTube channel and Twitch account were quite frequent for two people who had just spent the entire car ride back home arguing about what to eat for dinner.

“Fine, I’ll just go into the Smash category,” George said. He clicked on the category and scrolled down before stopping on one stream.

Huh.

Dreamwastaken streaming Super Smash Bros Ultimate? Talking shit about online mode? That could be interesting.

“Oh, Dream,” Sapnap said, settling back against the couch. “He’s one of the newer people in the scene, but I’ve heard he’s pretty good. You wanna watch him?”

George shrugged and clicked on the stream.

Uptime was two hours and thirty minutes. True to the stream’s title, Dream was in the middle of an online match as Joker against a Snake who seemed to have adopted a campy playstyle. George couldn't be sure which one of them had the worst internet connection he had seen in his years of playing online Smash, but he was willing to bet it wasn't the guy streaming.

Just as George opened his mouth to comment on it, Dream slammed his fist against the table he had set his Switch against.

George jolted in his seat. Based on the lack of insult from Sapnap, he had jumped, too.

“What is this?” Dream shouted. “What is this shit? Do you see this lag? What is this input delay?”

Well, the stream title certainly hadn’t been wrong.

Dream had cut his despair short to finish the match, but George and Sapnap’s laughter continued with the chat past where the joke was supposed to be funny.

Finally, when the match ended, their laughter started dying down and George winced at the ache in his abdomen from laughing too hard. Dream had moved onto actually participating in the match and explaining his thought process.

“Did that give you guys anxiety?” Dream said, laughing. “Okay, that wasn’t the main point of that, but it was a fun bonus. Joker has some great recovery options, but none of you listen to me when I say that.”

George brought his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, silent as he listened.

There was a certain quality to Dream’s voice that lulled in, made his shoulders less tense, reminded him to unclench his jaw. His movements on-screen were fluid and confident even with the excessive lag. His fluency with the character he played was overwhelmingly clear. And his jokes, his laugh, his quips, his  _ personality— _

“Oh, pizza’s here.”

George snapped out of his trance. When the world around him settled, he found himself in a dimly lit room thirty minutes after they had clicked on Dream’s stream. Sapnap’s footsteps padded somewhere in the distance against their wooden floorboards. Rain pattered against the roads outside.

George blinked. Had he time-traveled?

Sapnap set the pizza box down on the table next to the laptop. When George looked up, he had an eyebrow raised at him.

“You good, man?” Sapnap asked.

George glanced back towards the screen, his lips curving into a smile when Dream cheered at the end of a match. He nodded in thanks when Sapnap handed him a plate.

“Yeah,” George said quietly. “I’m good.”

* * *

Maybe having sugar right before bed wasn't such a good idea.

George threw his blankets off him and picked up his phone from the nightstand—oh, god, that was bright.

Midnight. Not a bad time to be up, but not a good one considering how much he had to do the next day. But at this point, he had already lost the second he opened his phone. Go big or go home.

George opened the Twitch app and scrolled back through the Smash category.

Nobody he usually watched was online. Fair; most of them lived in a time zone adjacent to his. Nothing looked interesting in the Smash category no matter how far he scrolled down.

He paused.

Dream had been pretty interesting. And that stream he and Sapnap had watched couldn't have been his first stream…

George tapped on his profile. While there wasn't a giant backlog of vods saved, there was still a substantial amount from the past few months—jackpot.

George tapped on the second most recent vod and skipped ahead a couple of minutes until he saw the Smash home screen.

So Dream was a Joker main. That much was obvious from his current discussion on who was S tier in the current version of Smash Ultimate. Of course, George had witnessed his fair share of verbal fistfights over tier lists, but Dream's arguments were rational, logical,  _ creative _ , bringing up new perspectives George had never seen from before.

Or maybe it was just his soothing voice that made everything sound perfect. George was too tired to sort out which one it was.

This stream had a focus on labbing, it seemed. Dream drilled combo after combo while interacting with his chat, which seemed to have a lot of people more along the lines of… the troll type.

"Guys, I promise you," Dream began, "if Steve from Minecraft is the next DLC fighter, I will only play Steve at every tourney I go to." He paused. No facecam indicated whether he was focused on labbing or reading (and now that he thought about it, George was admittedly curious what he looked like. But a quick Google search pulled up nothing). "What, you want me to watch the leaked trailer? Fine, whatever. Hold on, I have to pull it up on my phone."

George rolled his eyes. He knew exactly what "trailer" the chat was spamming, and he had immediately gone to mock it with Sapnap as soon as he saw the first few seconds. Oh, well. He would have to wait for Dream to finish watching.

"Oh my god, Steve in Smash?" Dream gasped, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. "Let's gooo! The Smash ball is wrong and the video quality looks like shit, but pog! Pogs in the chat!"

George laughed, and the world around him slipped away.

* * *

Waking up to a clearly exhausted Sapnap nursing a cup of coffee at the kitchen table was not a good precursor to how the rest of the day would go.

“Um, good morning,” George said, keeping his distance as he inched his way towards the refrigerator.

Silence. And not the amicable, comfortable kind either.

“So… have you eaten breakfast yet? I can cook us something if you want.”

“George, I hate you,” Sapnap began. He glared up at George. It would've been threatening if that wasn't the millionth time he had promised murder and never delivered. “I think I’ve memorized Dream’s voice solely because you listened to him all the way to two in the morning and you never bother to turn down your fucking volume. You know our rooms are right next to each other, right?"

“It was three in the morning, actually.”

“That’s not better.”

“I know it’s not better. Just thought I might as well be honest.” George opened the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of eggs. “Can I bribe you with breakfast?”

“You can bribe me by using headphones like a normal person.”

“So… you don’t want breakfast?”

Sapnap stared down at the table, probably contemplating why he had agreed to share an apartment with George. God knew George would be wondering the same thing if their places were switched.

George reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a packet of bacon as well. “I’ll make breakfast.”

* * *

“Are you seriously about to three-stock me as Bowser Jr?”

“Yeah, you’re bad.”

George shot him a scowl when the match ended, and Sapnap laughed, both at the expression and their Twitch chat dishing out quips. But to be fair, both had about the same level of skill. They spent most of their time commentating, not actually playing the game.

“Whatever,” George said, leaning back into their couch with crossed arms. “You can say whatever you want about me. At least I’m not the one who went, ‘Are you cosplaying as Wii Fit Trainer?’ when his roommate dressed up for the gym.”

“But you never go outside! What else was I supposed to think?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“I don’t see how  _ you’re _ relevant.”

George frowned and opened his mouth to retort, but their donation sound played over the Twitch stream. He fell silent, waiting for the automated voice to read the message out loud.

“Thanks for the stream!” the voice read. “Do you guys know Dream?”

Sapnap chuckled and began setting up for another match against George. “You’re welcome, thanks for coming. And I know  _ of _ Dream. But George? I’m not sure about George.”

“What the hell do you mean by that?” George said, chuckling.

They both knew what the hell he meant by that. The teasing inflection in the pitch of Sapnap's voice was never a good sign.

Sapnap blinked. “You’re asking? You really want me to say what I mean?”

What would result from this anyway? More awareness of Dream as a player? More awareness of George’s favorite streamer? George could handle the teasing he’d get on Twitter for a few days afterwards. Sapnap had already brought up the topic anyway; addressing it directly was a better option than letting their audience run wild with theories.

George shrugged. “Go ahead.”

“Well… alright. Just don’t get mad at me when I expose you.” Sapnap picked his character and started the match after George picked his, too. “Alright, you ready for this chat? You ready to hear about how George is the biggest Dream stan there is?”

“Wait, what? I agreed to you telling them, not slandering me with lies.”

“Should’ve read the fine print.”

George rolled his eyes but gestured for him to continue.

Sapnap’s face visibly brightened at that. What a child. “Chat, listen, George is literally a  _ simp _ for Dream. Like, it’ll be two AM and I’ll be trying to vibe in my room, but all I hear is George dying of laughter every time Dream says anything. And I swear I can give you a quote off any Dream vod because George over here doesn’t have the sense to use headphones. Every time—yeah, chat, call him a simp. He’s a total simp.”

“Just because I’m a fan doesn’t mean I’m a simp,” George said. He must’ve had a pout on his face, because Sapnap took one look at him and laughed.

“Oh, yeah? You have some evidence for that?”

“I don’t know. You tell me, Simpnap.”

Sapnap rolled his eyes upon seeing the chat turn in George’s favor and picked up his cup of apple juice. “Guys, guys, just because George finally made one good insult in his life doesn’t mean that my point isn’t—George! I was drinking my fucking apple juice!”

George burst into a fit of laughter, taking one hand off his controller to hold his stomach. Attacking Sapnap’s character on-screen while he was distracted was probably the biggest dick move anyone could make in a match, but he had no regrets, especially after hearing the sheer betrayal in his voice.

“I can’t believe this.” Sapnap set the cup down. “My own roommate, my best friend, my  _ brother _ backstabbed me like a snake. That’s it, George is canceled. Hashtag George is over party is gonna be the top trending result on Twitter, I’m betting ten dollars on it now.”

George scoffed and rolled his eyes, yet he couldn’t hold back the smile on his face. “You’re so annoying. Can we get this match started already?”

Sapnap’s character rushed towards him, and the match started.

* * *

"I can't believe you actually got it trending," George grumbled, digging through his wallet.

Sapnap grinned and held his hand out expectantly. “No scamming, George, we’re right in front of the stream.”

“Ugh, shut up, I know.”

They had been streaming for a little over four hours at that point, and their collective sanity had crashed into the negatives. Sapnap had spent the last thirty minutes labbing with an unfamiliar character while George kept tabs on the stream chat. But Twitter—Twitter betrayed him.

“You’re all Sapnap simps. That’s why it’s trending,” George said, rolling his eyes. He pocketed his wallet after handing the bill to Sapnap. “Whatever. I’m ending the stream.”

Sapnap laughed and folded the bill in half. He scooted closer to the computer to scroll through their Twitch feed. “Who’re we raiding?”

Someone playing through classic mode, another playing through the story mode, Dream labbing—

Dream? Dream labbing?

“Oh, Dream’s labbing right now,” George said. “We should raid him.”

“Shouldn’t we raid someone with less viewers?”

“Well, yes, but he actually knows how to play the game, unlike you.”

Sapnap scoffed. “You say that after getting beat by me three million times. You’re just simping again.”

“No, I’m not! Look, he’s very creative with how he uses Joker’s moveset, he explains what he’s doing in a way that makes sense, he’s actually good at the game—”

“Alright, alright, we’re raiding him.” Sapnap leaned back after setting up the raid, and the two watched the raider count increase little by little. “It’s about time for dinner where we are, so show this guy lots of love, chat. Be nice, be friendly, all that good stuff.”

“Thanks for tuning in, everyone,” George said. “Bye, guys.”

“Bye!”

With that, their audience had been moved over to Dream’s stream. When George clicked over to watch Dream’s stream, the chat was already full of people announcing the raid.

“2G1B raid?” Dream said after a few seconds of silence. He chuckled. “Wow, that wasn’t what I expected today. Thanks for the raid, you two—fuck!”

George laughed and typed “L” into the chat as Dream scrambled and failed to recover from a fall.

Sapnap raised an eyebrow at that. “You sure have a weird way of flirting.”

“Shut up.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omega stage - a stage with just flat ground, no platforms  
> neutral B - typically the character's most basic special move, being a projectile or some type of charging attack  
> kill percentage - what health percentage an opponent needs to be at for a particular move to send them into the blast zone  
> counter - A move that relies on waiting to be struck first, and then retaliating

**George [13:01]** snapmap are we out of spinach or not  
  
What a blessed day to be freezing in the vegetable aisle while waiting for his dumbass roommate to respond to the question he sent five minutes ago. Thankfully, there was nobody at the grocery store to stare at him standing in place and twiddling his thumbs like an idiot.

George hated grocery shopping without Sapnap. He still hated it when Sapnap was with him, but at least he had someone else to confirm what they needed to buy.

 **George [13:06]** snappynappy you dick answer me  
 **Sapnap [13:06]** not too sure about snappynappy, but sapnap would love to help

God, George hated this man.

 **George [13:06]** fine  
 **George [13:06]** sapnap are we out of spinach  
 **Sapnap [13:07]** dont know about that but  
 _Sapnap sent an attachment_

George squinted to make out what exactly Sapnap had sent him. It was a picture of his computer screen and George could recognize the design of Twitch on the site he had opened. Now that he looked closer, that was definitely a Smash stage, but—

Wait a second.

Wait—

 **George [13:07]** DREAM IS STREAMING AND U DIDNT TELL ME????  
 **Sapnap [13:07]** LMAO  
 **George [13:07]** i hate you i hate you i hate you  
 **Sapnap [13:07]** love youuuuu

George pocketed his phone, grabbed a bag of spinach, and headed towards the exit.

* * *

“Ugh, why do we have so much spinach?” Sapnap asked, closing the refrigerator door as he whirled around to face George. “Did you really have to buy more yesterday?”

George sipped from his cup. “I wonder whose fault that is.”

Sapnap only rolled his eyes.

* * *

By the time George had finished editing a new video, the first rays of sunlight filtered in through the cracks of his window blinds. A half-eaten box of cereal was all that blocked him from the sunlight. Birds chirped in the distance, but all George could process was the whir of his monitor and the glaring light on his screen.

Save. He hadn’t saved his progress yet.

George jerked his mouse to the top right of the screen to save, letting out a sigh of relief when the video saved successfully. Maybe procrastinating on Twitter and YouTube hadn’t been the best idea when he had publicly announced his and Sapnap’s channel would be posting a video soon.

A knock rapped against his bedroom door.

Sapnap’s muffled voice followed it. “George? You awake?”

“Yeah,” George called out.

Sapnap turned the doorknob and pushed the door open, frowning upon seeing the box of cereal. "Dude, gross. I eat from that box, too."

Even at six in the morning, George still had the sense to scoff and roll his eyes. “Not anymore. You wanna see the finished video?"

"I'll look at it later. I've got news for you."

Whenever Sapnap said those five words, it was either something amazing or something horrifically bad. There had historically been no middle ground. George prepared himself for the worst and grabbed the box of cereal.

"Alright, tell me," George said.

"So, you know the Challengers Approaching tournament?"

What kind of question was that? It was one of the most widely acclaimed events in the Smash community, and it was one Sapnap wouldn't shut the fuck up about when it happened every year. At this point, George probably knew more about it than he would've liked.

"What about it?" George asked, reaching into the cereal box.

“So, you remember BadBoyHalo from the Melee days, right?”

“Why do you say that like the Melee days are over? It’s not completely dead yet.” George pulled a single piece of cereal out and popped it into his mouth. “And of course I do. You won’t shut up about him running Challengers Approaching.”

Sapnap grinned and presented his phone screen to him. "They needed commentators. He emailed me an invitation this morning."

George's heart stopped. His grip on the cereal box went slack.

"Aw, come on, dude, I just vacuumed the floors yesterday—"

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, I'm serious. Check our business email if you don't believe—"

"Let's fucking go!" George cheered. The cereal box and consideration for their neighbors were left forgotten. He rocketed out of his chair and wrapped his arms around Sapnap, pulling him into a tight hug. "Sapnap, we did it! We did it!"

Sapnap laughed and hugged him back. "We fucking did it, man! I can't believe it." When he pulled back from the hug, he wiped his palm against his face. "Like, dude, as soon as I saw that email, I knew you had to know. I'm so excited right now, my heart is racing."

George laughed into his hands, his own heart pounding in his chest.

To be invited to such an event was beyond their imagination when they had first started a commentating channel with nothing but shitty mics, each other, and a dream. And to think they had started off almost eight thousand kilometers from each other using their closet space to record… He had felt like such an idiot talking to himself in a dark room in the early morning, but just this once, he would admit he had no regrets.

"Pack your bags, loser," Sapnap said, pocketing his phone. "I mean, not really, but it's a month away and hotel rooms get snatched up pretty quickly. You're gonna help me find a room after our stream today." He began walking towards the exit, then stopped. "Also, clean your floor. You're the one who dropped the cereal box like a dumbass."

Oh, right.

George leaned over to pick up the cereal box and the scattered pieces of cereal on the floor, his hands still trembling from the excitement.

* * *

_Sap & George @2guys1braincell  
_ _brb commentating at #ChallengersApproaching, see u in a week_

> _Dream @dreamwastaken  
> _ _Awesome, see you guys there!_

* * *

"You done smiling at your phone like an idiot?"

George lied down on the living room couch, reading the notification over and over again with the biggest smile on his face.

Sapnap shook his head but smiled as well. "Alright, keep doing you, man."

* * *

One last stream was probably customary before leaving for a week.

“I wanna see pogs in the chat, all of you,” Sapnap said. “If I don’t see this chat spammed with pogs, I’m ending the stream.”

George laughed and set the stage to a random stage. "Sapnap, you're so stupid. Can I start the match already?"

"Fine. Chat, you ready to see me absolutely clown George before the tournament? I won three games in a row against him while we were training yesterday. Maybe I should've applied as a challenger instead."

"You also got your ass handed to you while I was playing Little Mac yesterday."

"To be fair, we were playing on an omega stage and his ground game is—Why do you always betray me, George?"

George laughed as his character ran from Sapnap's. Again, attacking his opponent before they were ready may have been a dick move, but it brought him no less amount of joy than it did last time he had pulled the same move.

The match lasted longer than either of them thought it would: George's tendency to run whenever he didn't feel confident in his position combined with Sapnap not being able to land any kill moves meant long, drawn-out matches that exhausted both of them. Eventually, the two had decided to call it quits and end the match on a tie.

"Oh my god, my brain's fried right now," Sapnap groaned, rubbing his hand against his head. "How long was that match? Twenty minutes?"

George frowned. "Everyone's saying different numbers. I don't trust any of them."

"I guess I'll go back to the vod and start timing from when we began. And this vod will be saved, by the way, in case any of you at home want to watch this later."

"You sound like a salesman right now."

Sapnap opened his mouth to respond, but the sound of a donation interrupted him before he could speak. He waited with George for the automated speaker to read the donation message out loud.

"I really watched twenty-five minutes of one Smash match for it to end in a tie," the speaker said.

George chuckled while Sapnap set up the next match, laughing. "Thanks for watching so long. I'm sorry we couldn't live up to your expectations, Dreamwas…"

Taken. Dreamwastaken. Dream was here.

"Hey, Sapnap."

"Yeah?"

"Am I seeing this correctly?"

Sapnap leaned over to view the donation, then laughed and clapped his shoulder. “You are, you idiot. What, you need ol’ Sappy Nappy to hold you through this momentous occasion?”

“I just…” George’s throat went dry. He took a sip of the apple juice on the table in front of him before speaking again. “Shut up, Simpnap. Anyway, you haven’t played Ryu in a while. Are you still upset about that nerf?”

“... Maybe.”

“Pissbaby.”

“Simp.” Sapnap elbowed him before readjusting his position on the couch. “You know what? I’m gonna play Ryu this match. You’re gonna get destroyed.”

George rolled his eyes but smiled as he started the next match.

Even if his nerves were on fire from the thought of Dream watching the match.

* * *

_Dream @dreamwastaken  
_ _@GeorgeNotFound @2guys1braincell 1v1 me at #ChallengersApproaching_

> _George @GeorgeNotFound  
> _ _Bet_
> 
> _Sapnap @Sapnaptw  
> _ _Simp_

* * *

“Sapnap, verse me right now,” George said, pushing the door to Sapnap’s room wide open. He winced when the door crashed into the door stopper. “Whoops.”

Sapnap only sighed and picked up the Switch on his desk.

* * *

The city itself was big enough. To say the venue the tournament was being held at was enormous would be a major understatement.

People streamed by in droves, some in Smash merchandise and others carrying around Switch cases. While the air was cold, the skies were blue without a single cloud to be seen. George counted his blessings he and Sapnap wouldn’t be miserable on the competition days, considering the hotel they were staying at was a good ten-minute walk from the venue.

“Now, Georgie, I know you’re short and all,” Sapnap began in a frustratingly condescending tone, “so if you ever feel like you need to hold onto a tall, responsible—”

“Then I’ll go find someone else. Got it.”

“Wow, okay.”

George rolled his eyes at the pout on Sapnap’s face and elbowed him. “Shut up and find the organizer already. We’re later than I would like.”

Sapnap jabbed him back but set his sights around the venue for their organizer.

* * *

“On top of commentating, you’ll also be responsible for double-checking the accuracy of the brackets, giving the competitors company, interacting with the spectators, making conversation on camera while you’re not commentating—”

“Bad,” George groaned, holding his head. “Can you slow down a bit?”

“My walking or talking?”

“Both.”

Bad stopped his stride in the middle of a busy hallway, sending apologetic smiles to the people behind him.

George and Sapnap exchanged a glance.

They had found their tournament organizer somewhere in one of the casual hang-out spaces, talking the ear off a taller man wearing a black hoodie that read “People Suck.” It had taken a bit of effort to get his attention, but apparently one curse word by George was enough to earn them an entire lecture on bad language in child-friendly spaces. 

Not like that was something George didn’t know would happen. The tournament organizer was a frequent guest on Dream’s streams, after all.

“Sorry about that,” Bad said, starting to walk at a slower pace. “You won’t be juggling all of that on your own, though. Callahan’s in charge of the bracket matchups, but he hasn’t sent out the wrong information too many times. And A6d will be in the same room as you guys to handle the technology side of things if something gets messed up.”

George and Sapnap exchanged another confused glance.

“... A6d’s the person in the rude hoodie.”

Ah, okay. That made more sense.

Finally, the three stopped in front of a set of double doors. Bad pushed them open, ushering the two into a room with a wide black couch in the center and a background of a black screen with the tournament’s logo in the middle. Lights and cameras were pointed at every angle imaginable. A TV screen displaying the home screen of a Switch was set in front of them beneath the middle camera. Behind the cameras, A6d sat in a rolly chair with a giant mug of coffee on the desk in front of him.

A6d raised an eyebrow at them and waved.

George waved back.

Bad rattled off some ground rules for commentating that he and Sapnap had already read in a document, and George waited for death.

* * *

“Did I tell you guys this story about George being a simp?”

“This is your favorite story. You’ve said it, like, three times by now.”

“What if there’s people who haven’t heard it?”

George rolled his eyes and flopped back against the couch.

They had already agreed to Sapnap being able to tell this story as many times as he wanted; they had drafted an entire list of stories they were allowed to tell the audience a week ago, after all. Still, he had the feeling Twitter would be a hellstorm after this.

“So, back in high school, right?” Sapnap grinned and clapped his hands together like the gremlin he was. “I was too young for a job, but George was working at… some restaurant? A cafe?”

“Cafe.”

“Yeah, cafe. Valentine’s Day was coming up, and I was complaining about how lonely I was. You know, teenager things. And this guy—” Sapnap paused to throw his arm around George’s shoulders. “This guy got his mom to help him sort out Skittles by color and sent me a package of all the purple ones. I mean, they’re my least favorite, but it’s the thought that counts. Can you believe that?”

George shrugged Sapnap’s arm off him despite the smile on his face. “You’re actually so annoying. It was such a bother, too. Purple is a stupid color.”

“How’re you gonna talk crap about a color you can’t see?”

“That’s why it’s stupid!” He rolled his eyes when Sapnap laughed. “Okay, laugh at my pain like that. When you’re done, we have a match to commentate.”

“Elaborate.”

“Gladly. It’s a singles match.”

“You make it sound like this is the sadder version of Tinder.”

“That’s because it is.”

Sapnap shuffled through the papers in his lap until he reached the paper listing out the latest bracket. “This match is… Mysterious versus Dream, two relatively new players to the Smash Ultimate scene. How’re you feeling about this matchup, George?”

The screen switched from the perspective of the Switch to a pan over the players. On Dream’s side, a tall, blond man took a seat on the left side of the Switch before facing the camera directly. His lips quirked up into a small, confident smile, then he turned away.

Holy shit.

“George!”

George snapped out of his trance and shook his head. “Yeah?”

“I called your name, like, five times. Don’t tell me you stayed up again watching…” Sapnap’s gaze darted between the screen and George until it finally landed on George. He smirked. “Oh, I see.”

“You see what?” George said, his heartbeat stuttering. His thoughts were slightly fuzzy after that spectacle, but they were coherent enough to continue the conversation for the sake of the audience.

“This is the first time Dream’s done a face reveal, isn’t it? And now you’re simping hard.”

“What?”

Sapnap threw his head back and cackled. “I knew it! I knew this would happen! You’re even blushing, you Dream simp!”

George stared, his mouth slightly ajar. He shut it upon feeling the heat that had rushed to his cheeks. And with him being on camera, there was no way of denying it. “I can’t believe this.”

There was no retort from Sapnap. He was too busy dying of laughter like a jerk to properly say anything.

“Okay, that was… interesting, I guess.” George cleared his throat, willing the red to fade away. “Looks like Dream’s picked Joker pretty quickly. No surprise there. But it seems Mysterious is going for the pro strats by counterpicking with Pikachu with the lucky Red hat, too. What do you think of this matchup, Snipsnap?”

Sapnap’s laughter cut off completely at that, and he wrinkled his nose. “Ew, what did you just call me?”

“Stannap.”

“Worst name you’ve come up with yet, congrats on that. But they’re starting the match now, so we should be in for a treat.”

True to his word, the match had started. Joker had spawned on the left side of Final Destination while Pikachu spawned on the other side. Within milliseconds of them being released from spawn protection, Pikachu sprinted straight towards Joker.

“Mysterious makes the first move, it seems,” Sapnap said. “Dream has a counter but—oh, yup, Dream countered. Pikachu does counter Joker pretty heavily though, so it’ll be interesting seeing how the match-up goes.”

George’s eyes fought to keep up with the sporadic movements each player made. “It’s going by pretty quickly. Mysterious backed off after that first attack and is standing on the ledge throwing out a ton of neutral Bs.”

“He’s not having it, though.”

“No, sir, he’s not. Dude, there’s so much grabbing now. What is this, an unsupervised highschool prom?”

“Sapnap, you’re not allowed to say that on-air.”

“And you’re that one chaperone who took chaperoning too seriously and—”

“Oh my god, did you see that?” George said, his heart lightening and blood pumping. “Dream, the absolute madman, there’s no way he would’ve survived without Arsene there.”

The rest of the match went the same way: there was a lull in the match that George and Sapnap patched with their commentary, then one of the two would do something scream-worthy, and they would talk over each other trying to explain what exactly had happened. When someone lost a stock, they groaned and fell back in their seats.

Now, both players were down to their last stock at high percentages.

“They’re both just… kinda dancing around each other now,” Sapnap said. “Looks like they’re both nervous. Any move could be the finishing one, so I don’t blame them.”

George chuckled. “Hey, Sapnap, what’re the kill percentages on their neutral Bs?”

“Dude, I don’t know, it’s gotta be somewhere in the two hundreds.”

“Dream’s pretty close to getting Arsene, though,” George said, watching so intently his eyes began to strain. But he couldn’t afford to waste even a second. His hands were balled up as he waited for someone, _anyone_ to make a move—

“He’s going in!” Sapnap shouted. “Dream’s going in, but Mysterious retaliates with a forward smash, but—”

George gasped. “Dream countered! He countered, and that’s the game.” He fell back into the couch with a laugh and placed a hand on his heart. “Oh my god, my heart’s actually racing.”

“There’s Joker’s victory screen,” Sapnap said. “Both clearly great players. Congrats to Dream, great last move, man. And GG to Mysterious, those were some solid Pikachu plays. George, you’re the simp here. How does that compare to Dream’s other finishing moves?”

George rolled his eyes but still searched through his catalog of finishing moves. That was what Dream was known for: flashy, creative kill moves. Every match he played was amazing.

“Sorry, can’t answer that question,” George said. “We should probably shut up now if we don’t wanna get yelled at by production.”

The screen in front of them switched to a view of Dream and Mysterious shaking hands. A reporter walked into frame with a microphone in hand for the typical short post-match interview for both players.

George’s heart danced as he sipped at his water.

* * *

“I told you to watch your posture.”

Sapnap winced as he bent his body in increasingly strange positions. “Shut the hell up, George. It’s not like you’re any better.”

“I’m not the one whose back sounds like bubble wrap.”

“Harsh.”

It had been a straight four hours of commentating with a couple of breaks in between. And now it was lunchtime, where they would order overpriced catered food in the cafeteria and have stilted conversations with various members of the community. Yay. George would’ve preferred to dip to a fast food restaurant (where the food was cheaper and he didn’t need to talk to anyone), but if Sapnap wanted to stay, he supposed he could bear it.

Now, they walked down the halls of the venue side-by-side, occasionally waving at a passerby who waved first.

“Oh, yeah,” Sapnap said, stretching his arm across his chest. “When’s that one v one with Dream coming?”

“Never,” George said.

“I mean, you had that entire conversation on Twitter. It’s basically a promise now.”

“Yes, that entire two Tweet conversation on Twitter. What a reliable platform.”

“You know what I meant.” Then Sapnap stopped in his tracks, and a grin tugged at his lips. “And speak of the damn devil. Hey, guys!”

George turned, only to see Bad walking towards them next to…

Dream? Holy shit—

“Hi!” Bad said, settling into a stop once he reached a fair distance from them. “Have I introduced you to Dream yet? Dream, this is George and Sapnap, a pair of commentators I invited—”

“Bad, I know,” Dream said quietly. He offered them a… shy smile? “Hey, it’s nice to meet you guys. I’m Dream.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Sapnap said, holding his hand out for a handshake. He gave George a not-so-subtle look that screamed at him to act natural.

George pushed a smile on his face and cursed the heat rising to his face when their hands made contact. He shook the hand, ignoring the way his heart leapt to his throat. “Nice to meet you, Dream.”

Dream grinned at him (and wow, George’s heart melted). “Are we still on for that one v one?”

“If you’d like to.”

“Alright, cool.” He glanced down at the watch on his left wrist, then looked back up to George. “We still have two hours left. How about I buy you lunch first?”

Was this real? Was this real life? George.exe has stopped working, someone needed to reboot him.

“Oh, it’s okay, I’ll buy my own lunch,” George said a little more quickly than he would’ve liked.

Sapnap clapped him on the shoulder a little harder than necessary. “What he means to say is yes, he’ll let you buy him lunch. Bad, can you show me around here? I’d love to get to know some more of the people involved in this.”

Bad perked up at that. “Of course! Here, let me introduce you to Callahan. He’s in charge of bracket matchups. Callahan, I’m coming in!” With that, he and Sapnap pushed the door open to another room and disappeared through it.

That was on purpose. That was totally on purpose.

What a great friend Sapnap was, abandoning him when he needed him most.

“Well, that was strange,” Dream said, tilting his head. Still, he turned to offer George the warmest smile he had received in his twenty-three years of life. “I’m still buying you lunch, by the way. Should we get going?”

God, what a stunning smile.

George mustered up what he hoped was an equally warm smile. “Yeah, sure. I would love to.”

And that was the truth. But there were some uncertainties from that point on.

Maybe the light blush on Dream’s face as they continued to talk and walk alongside each other was a trick of the light. Maybe the way Dream’s full attention seemed to be on him and him only was a figment of his imagination. And maybe there was the tiniest bit of a chance Dream felt the same way he did.

Maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is mysterious a real person? no. am _i_ a real person? no.  
> thanks for reading :0


End file.
